Reader Failure

At the beginning of the year I seemed to be making a come back with that whole reading books thing, after the recent drought. Needless to say, that didn't really go anywhere.

Here are the books I read so many months ago. I do not do them justice.

Blonde On A Stick - Conrad Williams



Conrad Williams is one of the most powerful writers out there, and this is has all the power of a cyclone and all the precision of brain surgery. It is a brilliant, cocky, startling narrative that struts about and gets away with murder. Magnificent voice. Absolutely recommended.

Counting Heads - David Marusek



Given to me by a friend who said the fury in Acception reminded him of this, and then couldn't think why. This book blindsided me. It. Is. Brilliant. Stole my breath with its ideas and execution, and made me excited about fiction. Absolutely fascinating critiques of society, technologies and the roles they may play. Meaty, glorious stuff, with stunning characters and plot to boot. So very worth it, so very very worth it.

The Scarring - Geoff Page



The same friend gave me this, a novella in poetry. Very easy to read, with (unsurprisingly) a lovely cadence and rhythm to it. I am no poet so cannot speak of its technical merit, but as far as narrative goes....yikes.

That's...

Fuck me.

Above/Below - Stephanie Campisi & Ben Peek



Two awesome post-apocalyptic-ish novellas that fold in upon each other and bounce off each other in wonderful and interesting ways. I think I'm well documented as being a damn sycophant when it comes to Ben's writing, and this is a prime example of why. Campisi matches the grit and anguish in Below with breathless despair and denial in Above. A very intelligent read.

Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey



Goddamn I love Ellie. Not a character, a person. So many PEOPLE in this book! Quite a lot of laugh out loud with "I know EXACTLY what you mean, girl!" moments, in amidst all the supernatural creepy shit going on. Of which there is a lot. Christchurch, it turns out, is a pretty menacing place in which to insert fiction. Great stuff, omnomnom.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA

So Ben Peek hightails it off to the US of A, gets pished on the 4th of July and demands my postal address. He's going to send me a postcard, he says.

There was a postcard in the package, he did not lie. There was also a t-shirt.



BEST. T-SHIRT. EVAH.

Immediately showed it to mother and brother, both of whom shared my reaction: astonished gleeful cackling.

Thanks, Dr Peek. You da man. <3

Beneath the Red Sun - Ben Peek

author site

The Deal: At this point in time, due to an RSI, I can only type for 10 minutes at a time. What you see below is what is hammered out before the timer goes off- and nothing more.

Matthew Brady was a soldier, and as a soldier he killed people the state deemed it appropriate to kill. On his own initiative, he killed a man the state did not deem it appropriate to kill, and because he laughed at the hypocrisy practiced in the court room, he was sentenced to transportation.

On the day of his release, he is approached by a mortician who informs him his brother and family have been murdered, and that the whereabouts of the murderers is known.

What to do.

I'd say this story is like an onion - nothing but layers on layers on layers with shit that will sting your eyes (and it totally will) - but that's not entirely true. It's more like a Mandelbrot picture. Saying it's an onion implies that beneath all the layers is a core. Mandelbrots never end. If you wish, you could read it as nothing more than a cycle-of-violence/revenge story. Good luck trying it. I don't think it's possible to read such an intensely unforgiving story and be oblivious to the many grey areas and uneasy questions being posed. Class, race, gender, culture, personal ethics and political morals, and more. It's meaty, yet lean. No spare flesh, all the muscle on the bones is exactly what is required and does not lie idle.

It's also the most Australian not-Australia I've encountered in fiction. Heat (possibly empathising a bit much due to the weather today and tomorrow) and dust, and dust and heat. A desert that isn't sand, but dried cracked clay, run through with gullies and no water. Townships set up to mimic the Motherland, impractical in the new climate. Massive divides between the colonisers and colonised. Half-castes caught between. And oh, I don't know, I know I'm babbling now, but it was just breath-taking. The details were perfect, precise, and fresh.

And you may not notice if you're from the US or UK, but there's a shitload of books based in or extrapolated-not-too-loosely-from US/UK in both landscape and history, and it's quite easy to overdose on it. At least, I hit saturation point pretty regularly. Hence I leap about seeking out books from other places, to counterbalance and keep me interested in reading. Keep it fresh.

And here! Something based on the furious, cheating, thieving, murdering history that makes up the world I live in, something I'm pretty familiar with, and yet, was goddamn fresh. Man, I want more. Washed my head right clean.

Fuck kangaroos. Let's get murdering and looting.

(You know, I almost understand nationalism. Here's a piece of fiction that makes me raise my fist and go "FUCK YEAH! THAT'S MY HOME! BE JEALOUS AND WEEP YE OTHERS!")

(Which further leads to the idea of looking for yourself in fiction, something I have never really understood because I've considered myself too much a mongrel with outsider psychology to even consider a character would echo me, but this, I think this is what was meant...)

It's also a brilliant piece of craft. There are two streams, one following Matthew going forward in time, the other being Matther's brother's diary. Although we already know the family's fate, both streams are equal in their power to progress the plot and gift the reader with further insight into the politics and personalities involved. In a strange way, the two streams work backwards as they thread around each other. It must have been a headache to write, but extraordinary to read.

You can't buy this book because it isn't published. The world is fucked up like that.

Verdict: Fucking oarsum, and oh please some one buy it and publish it?

twenty-six lies/one truth - Ben Peek

From Silence Without

buy - author site

There's a pile of books on my desk, each of which I've read, each of which I have not yet written about. It has become a health hazard. It's going to topple and crush me. It's so big it's become too big to contemplate, so I keep letting it grow instead of dealing with it.

This particular book I read last year. That's how long it's been. I am a bad person.

Also, it is fucking freezing in here. I'm not mimicking Ben on the cover there. I'm dressed to survive freeze slower.

This book is fucking OARSUM.

I was greedy and devoured it too fast. I inhaled it, taking tokes on it at work when the supervisors weren't on the prowl. I finished it far too quickly, well before I was ready to stop reading, and so went back and flipped through the pages, rereading bits and pieces on whim.

It's a bit of a masterpiece of juggling and jigsaw. Three distinct threads present themselves in the pages; that of his relationship with Geraldine, that of his own personal history and place in what he knows as Australia, and a third, tongue-in-cheek look at author forgeries, and the general question of truth in the written word. It's a topic toyed with to great affect, as he uses himself as the vessel to carry these three narrations, and the title alone is enough to make the reader pause at the other end, and wonder what the lie was.

It's fiction. It's all true.
Or; it's autobiography. It's all lies.

I've chewed on the subject, having used myself in fiction recently. Does it lend some extra authenticity, knowing that the author is leaving themselves truly bare instead of hiding pieces of themselves in a cast of characters? I don't know. I suspect that's something for the reader to decide. Maybe there's some greater sense of connection to be had, as with the more personal of personal blogs. I don't know. I just know it felt right at the time. (Like so many things that later aren't.)

Does it matter? Perhaps, if you buy into the notion that authenticity leads to authority.

Does it matter to me? Yes. But no. Regardless of where this book is pigeon-holed, it remains fucking OARSUM, a little book of brilliance. Ben is a master at playing with structure, and has done so to great effect here, striding through the alphabet and giving the reader a neat catalog of his life and thoughts and opinions. The mosaic is superbly balanced, and the pieces bounce of each other with an ever-growing resonance.

People often talk about the next Great Australian Novel. When I'd finished it, I sat on the train, full of all the meat contained in this slim volume, and thinking of everything it had to say about Australia here, now. I think this is that long awaited Great Australian Novel.

It is only fitting it be written by a white heterosexual middle class male, one who recognises how he fits in the world around him. It is only fitting that this book not be published or available within Australia, and as with the majority of Australia's culture, must be imported.

Whether you agree with me or not, it remains an amazing book.

Verdict: Let me say FUCKING OARSUM a third time. Also, illustrated by the amazing Anna Brown who went on to draw Nowhere Near Savannah, which is equally as brilliant.

I, PIMP

• That most wretched wench, Nadine, has been writing for firefox.org for some time now, and appears to be having a gay old time digging up creepy stories. The last article scared the shit out of me, and because I'm a suckah I listened to those clips over and over. Jolly old town!
• That most torrid trollop, Deb, has roped a two book deal with Angus & Robertson. Which is old news, but my pimping has been lacking of late. PR MACHINE GOGOGO. I had the honor of reading her baby before she sent it out, and it was one of the best things I read last year. Unfortunately, I can't tell you when it will be coming out. Or what name she'll be writing under. Or what the title will be. BUT IT IS MADE OF OOOOAARSUM. (Also, 'ware her blog, she keeps posting large photos of spiders AUGH)
• That sordid scallywag, Jeff, wrote a Predator novel, which I also had the honor of reading. It is also made of OOOOOAARSUM, but a different sort of oarsum to Deb's novel, being as there are no golems in this, nor any Predator's in that. But there is a GIANT FUCKING CROCODILE, how can you resist? September for birth, I think.
• He also wrote this other thing, 'The Situation', and fed me a copy of that too. It's exactly the sort of thing you don't read at 4 am, because, my god, it's a nasty horrible piece of work. Beautifully written and fantastically fucked up. It deals specifically with the horrors of office politics, but sits solid upon the more general theme of bullying. It's powerful stuff, took me back to primary school. Love the beetles. Love the fish. Love the headfuck. Had to watch The Wizard of Oz as a chaser.
• That rascally rascal, Ben, has a weekly comic going on over at his livejournal. Nowhere Near Savannah needs more attention. It amuses me greatly, methinks it'll do the same for you. If you haven't already rubbed your nose in it, I recommend you do.
• A mysterious stranger emailed me after my a softer world reference, and said I "might also enjoy the webcomic "Tiny Ghosts", which has similar sensibilities." The mysterious stranger was right. I ate the archive, which was too small, and made me sniffle and snort and smile, sometimes all at once. Thank you, mysterious stranger.